Producing a fundraising leaflet
When designing a fundraising leaflet for your charity, it is important to remember that the purpose this piece of literature is to inspire people to fundraise for your charity. It's important to have information about your charity within your leaflet but don't go overboard. Focus more on what people can do; for example, running, baking or even sky-diving. If people want to know more about the charity, simply point them to your website.
Our approach to fundraising literature is to keep it fun and positive: people want to feel that they can make a difference.
Social media, use it wisely
We are constantly asked "what are your views on the use of social media with charities?" Our answer is when used well it can be very effective.
By using social media devices such as Twitter and Facebook it is an easy way to keep your supporters up to date with your activities as a charity, but our experience says, keep it relevant: your supporters don't want to know what colour Bob's new sweater is or whether you're going out for drinks tonight, they want to know what the charity is actively doing with the donations they give to you.
We have seen our charity clients receive huge benefits from using social media, especially once they have established a supporter following. The media channels give you easy ways to inform supporters of new campaigns, ways to fundraise or how to sign up to other projects you run as a charity.
The importance of a donate button on your charity's website
With all new web designs for our charity clients we always make sure that the donate button is in an obvious and constant position. We are regularly saying to our charity clients: you are a charity, people want to support you so let's give them the tools to enable them to.
A good position for the donate button is in the top right hand corner, as people expect it to be there. On the left hand side is the space where the charity logo is generally situated so don't let your donate button get lost by clashing with your logo.
From our experience with charity website re-design projects we have found that by making more of the donate button throughout the website, there has been a very good rise in online donations.
Using your website effectively
When looking into a new campaign strategy we ensure that our charities don't focus all their efforts on one form of media. Using our connected approach to communications we look at how a charity's website can aid its printed campaigns.
There is nothing worse than wanting more information about an appeal and having no clear guidance on where to find it. This is where your website can play a vital role: why not set up a direct URL for people to go to, where they can find out further information or sign up to the campaign.
Next week we will be looking at the importance of a donate button on your website.
Design an advert for your charity
Firstly lets face it, advertising space is not cheap, so when you decide to buy some our advice is, Make it count. There is no point filling the space up with an advert that has had very little thought behind it. So this week we will look into how to make your charity adverts more effective.
Take for example an advert that is to raise awareness of a new campaign, the advert is ¼ page A4 so we have to be even more precise about what we say as we have not got that much space to play with. Firstly we need a good snappy headline that sums up the campaign, this can be backed up with a photo or visual element if necessary or simply stand on its own. We now need to unwrap this headline with a short paragraph of up to 12 words. Your logo needs to feature in a strong prominent position so that the viewer does not forget who’s advert they are looking at. Lastly we need to know where to point them to get more information or a place to act now, this will most likely be your website so when they get there back this up with a clear route of navigation.
Charity Poster Design
The first thing we ask our clients when discussing the creation of a new poster is, “What is its purpose?”. Is the poster to fund raise, raise brand awareness or promote an event/campaign? Although the essential design aspects of the poster would not alter with the answers to these questions, they just help to really focus the message that is to be portrayed.
For instance, let’s take the answer to be, “We want to design a general fundraising poster for our charity as a whole”.
Now we can start designing, so what we need is a great picture, one that grabs the attention of the passer by. Once we have their attention we need a short snappy headline that gets straight to the point, then we unwrap this headline with a short paragraph of up to 12 words. We then push the viewer to where we want them to go next, probably your website so we want to make this nice and big and bold so they don’t forget it. Last but by no means least, it needs to feature your logo: there is no point someone spending their precious time looking at your poster if they have no idea who it’s for.
Next week we will be looking into charity advert designs.
Charity Design Tip - Headings and Sub-Headings: using them wisely
This week we continue to look into some important elements that help make up a good charity newsletter. This week’s topic looks into using headings and sub-headings to keep the reader interested.
Headings
Use strong, bold headings: after the nameplate, the headline that identifies and relates to each article should be the most prominent. These are the elements that keep the attention of the reader, enticing them to read on. The headings should be obviously larger than the body copy of your newsletter and your sub-headings.
Using Sub-headings
If you are featuring a long article, we recommend that you break the article down into sections. To differentiate each section, use a sub-heading that relates to it. This makes the article look more appealing to read and also gives the reader some anchor points so they can read the article in stages rather than all at once.
Here are some good examples of newsletters using headings and sub-headings:
A good example of a strong heading:
A page extract to demonstrate the use of sub-headings:
Next week we will look into using a stand first in your charity magazine or newsletter.
Charity Design Tip – Table of Contents, does your newsletter really need one?
This week we continue to look into some important elements that help make up a good charity newsletter. This week’s topic looks into what our opinion is on the use of contents pages.
As much as we would like to think that as soon as a charity’s newsletter hits their supporter’s doorstep, the response is to pick it up and read it cover to cover, the reality is that they may just flick through it or go directly to the information or story that they want to read.
By including a table of contents, usually on the front page, which lists articles and special sections of the newsletter by page number, it gives the reader easy access to any article that they want to go directly to.
Our experience when working with charities has led us to believe that because charities can often be conducting a number of projects, their supporters are often interested in a particular project that appeals to them. By using a table of contents you can announce to the recipients that in this issue is an update on a project that you are interested in. This in turn will entice the recipient to read the article and increase the connection that they have with you as a charity.
The next tip will be looking at how a good use of headings can make all the difference to the readability of your publication.
Charity Design Tip – Giving your newsletter an identity
Last week we discussed printed vs. digital newsletters: over the next couple of weeks we are looking into the important elements that make up a good Charity Newsletter.
The best way for me to do this is to give you pointers to help you on the way:
Give your newsletter a name
We always recommend to new and existing clients that they give their newsletters a name; this gives the publication its own identity and a lot more promotional clout. We always recommend that the name of the newsletter is in the nameplate: this is the top banner on the front of a newsletter that identifies the publication. By giving your newsletter its own identity it becomes a bigger part of your charity. It is the voice of the charity and should shout, “Look what we are doing with your support”, but also “Please keep supporting us so we can keep making a difference”.
Here are some good examples of where charities have given a unique identity to their newsletter by giving it a name:
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FARM-Africa We design and produce on a quarterly basis FARM-Africa’s newsletter very cleverly named ‘From The Field’. |
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Dogs Trust The Dogs Trust is a very large charity and has many different projects, which often have their own supporter base. The Dogs Trust names its newsletters accordingly: two newsletters we design and produce for them are ‘Hope News’ for the Hope Project and ‘Freedom News’ for the Freedom Project. |
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Tearfund Tearfund have a quarterly publication called ‘Teartimes’. This has become a big part of their marketing mix and consistently shows good returns once sent out. |
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NSPCC Again, a good example of how a large charity which has lots of newsletters relating to different campaigns has named its publications accordingly. Here for example, is their newsletter ‘Relay’ which is specifically about their campaign for Child Protection in Sport. |
The next tip will be looking at contents pages, myths, facts and more.
Charity Design Tips – Digital vs. Printed charity newsletters
With a big push on digital media, people often think that there is no longer any need for printed charity newsletters.
In our experience, printed newsletters are a vital tool to keep you connected with your supporters and sustain your fundraising throughout the year. They remind your supporters that you are still there, and show progress and success stories. Our clients all report good results when they send out printed newsletters.
Digital e-newsletters are very useful for short sharp updates, for getting urgent information out quickly. However, if you want your supporters to sit down with a cup of tea and read your news at length, then a well-designed, printed newsletter will do the job nicely! And who knows, a future supporter may pick it up to read too!
Next week’s Charity Design Tip… how to design a good charity newsletter.
